In July I attended the final stage of the National Policy Forum process and argued for a number of amendments to be included in the party’s final policy documents. I put forward amendments on: citizenship education (including sex and relationship education, employment rights and political education); measures to increase voter turnout; giving young people a say in the public services they use; providing affordable and effective training for adults looking to re-train and up-skill; introducing a cross-government strategy that puts women’s safety at the heart of policies; and restoring specialist language lessons for immigrant women, some of whom find that language is a barrier to escaping from violent situations. I also supported colleagues’ amendments on a wide variety of issues.

In NEC meetings I argued for changes to be made to the way we use the Access to Elected Office fund to ensure that disabled members don’t have to face unnecessary barriers in seeking selection. I also emphasised the need to ensure gender balancing at all levels of the party and spoke about the importance of keeping organisers in all of our target seats in the run-up to the general election as they are doing great work and have been shown to make a huge difference. We also decided which seats that need to select candidates should be all-women shortlists. It’s fantastic that we have so many women in target seats. I’d really encourage more women to put themselves forward and to join the Labour Women’s Network, which is doing a fantastic job of supporting women in the party.

In July I also went campaigning in a number of target seats: Chatham and Aylesford, Dover and Deal, Hastings, Broxtowe and Milton Keynes South. Please find my full report here: Bex Bailey NEC report July 2014.

Events to attend this month:

Labour Students is holding an Organisers’ Academy on 8/9/10 August in London, giving members the chance to learn how to be a campaign organiser. More details here.

If you’d like to come on the next Labour 3 Seats Challenge on 16 August, campaigning in three target seats in one day, you can sign up here.

On 18 August Young Labour will be joining Gloria De Piero MP and Jon Ashworth MP on the Seaside Express to campaign in Brighton. You can reserve a place here.

Keep an eye out for details of Young Labour’s and Labour Students’ next campaign weekend on 30/31 August, this month in Yorkshire.